Tag: Kevin Durant

This week, as you watch Oklahoma City and Kevin Durant in the 2012 NBA Finals and read about prodigious performances in NBA teams’ individual workouts, remember that Kevin Durant tested as the 78th out of 80 athletes tested in 2007. Durant famously could not lift 185lbs a single time, and also failed to excel in any of the other tests. Of course, none of those 77 players who were “better athletes” than Durant won the 2007-08 NBA Rookie of the Year, and Durant is the only three-time NBA scoring champ among his draft class. […]

Shooting is a motor skill despite many experts believing that shooting skill is an innate talent. The concentration when coaching or teaching young shooters is the sport-specific instruction: the elbow, the eyes, the knee bend, etc. When one watches an expert shooter, his technique looks effortless: Even a shooter with an unorthodox technique like Reggie Miller looks effortless when shooting the basketball. Moshe Feldenkrais wrote, “Light and easy movements are good ones, as a rule” (p. 86). Look at Kevin Durant’s effortless release: […]